Fantastic Four #26

[lordultimus]

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

ok this is bullshit, besides the dickery, franklin richards as a Mutant has been a constant since he was born. that is BULLSHIIT that they change this JUST so that they separate him from Krakoa.... i only accept this if Reed somehow had something to do with this....

[themajesticmoose]

Given what a piece of garbage Reed often is it would not surprise me at all if he messed with his son like that

[jlbarnett]

I think it should be Franklin honestly, doing it to himself

[nyadnar17]

This is utter fucking trash. Its so fucking garbage.

[themajesticmoose]

He's really not being a jerk here though

Humanity in the Marvel universe has attempted by my count a minimum of a dozen seperate genocides against Mutantkind in the past ten years.

And that's just the acts that qualify as genocide, I'm not counting the hundreds if not thousands of acts of mass murder and general hate crimes humanity has perpetrated

Mutantkind wanting a nation of their own where they don't have to put up with the bigoted garbage of pathetic repulsive bigoted douchebags is not only justified it's long overdue. Yes it sucks for Franklin that he can no longer hang out on Krakoa but the hurt feelings of one boy do not outweigh the decades of trauma of an oppressed and persecuted minority that have been the victims of continued and horrifically violent bigotry from the moment they came into existence

Xavier creating Krakoa as a Mutant nation is the first smart thing that he ever did in his life honestly.

[lordultimus]

And yet humans like Northstar's husband are living on Krakoa.

[themajesticmoose]

Human family and partners of mutants are allowed to live on Krakoa if invited by those mutants and if Krakoa gives its permission because they trust them.

That's not the case for Franklin here. Though if one of his mutant friends like Kitty Pryde or some of the kids he's been hanging out with wanted to invite him there for the day I'm sure he'd be welcome the same way that we've seen human friends of mutants allowed to visit in other comics as well

[lordultimus]

And they don't trust Franklin because...?

Besides, Sinister has a major voice on the Quiet Council and he's only a mutant because he cloned himself with an X-Gene. He's no more a mutant than Robert Down Jr was a black man in Tropic Thunder.

[themajesticmoose]

I do agree that allowing Sinister to live was a major mistake on Xavier's part and that he should have no place on Krakoa

Once they had what they needed from him he should have used Cerebro to locate and eliminate all trace of the Sinister clone species from the earth

He's a deranged clone hive mind based on the memories and personality of a man who was a mad scientist and a war criminal and allowing him to exist is absolutely going to become a huge problem for Krakoa.

But this is Xavier we're talking about here. To be clear, while I don't think he's a jerk for his decision here I'm not trying to say that I think he isn't a jerk in a million other ways or that he's a remotely good or intelligent person. 50% of the time he's incompetent and 49% of the time he's actively terrible

And I don't think it's that they don't trust Franklin here but rather that they are operating as a nation. The law of Krakoa as a country is that if you are human unless you are family or married to a Krakoan citizen you cannot live on Krakoa and you must be accompanied by a mutant if you wish to visit Krakoa

Yes it sucks for Franklin that he can't go there whenever he wishes and now won't be able to live there one day if he wants but it's no different than how you or I would have to jump through certain hoops if we wanted to move to another country and we might be turned down

[icon_uk]

It is somewhat different in how it's being handled though.

Franklin has laboured under the stresses of being an astonishingly powerful mutant since he was born. He's faced hostility and hatred because of it.

He's just been through a character arc about getting his parents to FINALLY acknowledge that he IS a mutant and that doesn't mean he's something somehow inherently needs fixing (like having your Dad mess with your DNA so you don't register as a mutant)

So to have it not only snatched away, but to be dismissed is perhaps the most casual of fashions is Xavier being beyond an asshole, he's being CRUEL, and needlessly so.

Though, given that I can't see any way Xavier would know any of this stuff and how apparently Reed Richards somehow never noticed, I think I call bullshit on this plot twist.

[lordultimus]

It doesn't help that Chip Zdarsky said he wrote the X-Men/FF mini (you know, the one where Charles literally battles Franklin's parents over him) as a metaphor for a trans teen coming out.

https://www.xplainthexmen.com/2020/02/284-precious-baubles/
https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2020/07/leaning-on-the-closet-door-x-menfantastic-four-and-trans-allegory/

[donnblake]

That's... yeah. That's why I get nervous anytime someone tries to tie the mutant metaphor to a specific RL group because there's always something coming down the pipe that's absolutely horrible through that lens. This would be, what, a trans kid showing up at what's supposed to be a safe space and being booted to the curb while being told he's just a trender?

[thezmage]

A trans girl being denied access to female-oriented spaces because

[mastermahan]

"You're not trans, you just wanted to be special." Yep, that sounds right. Some clear problems there.

[donnblake]

And, I mean, that can be part of the trans* experience, so I suppose it's theoretically a valid place to take the metaphor- but not really a good way to end it.

[zerocaloriecola]

no matter what group you tie it to it ends up looking terrible
anywhere from blackface like rachel dolozel to trender
because it goes into something very fundamental, someone pretending to an oppressed minority, any minority, just to feel special.

[themajesticmoose]

Yeah I am all for calling Xavier an asshole when he deserves it which is most of the time but this feels more like just bad writing and a clumsy plot twist by Slott than anything else

[jlbarnett]

the second he allowed the villains in, any claim for intelligence was forfeited.

Also, these mutants really haven't dealt with this for decades. Compressed timeline and all

[themajesticmoose]

I think allowing most "Villains" onto the island is fine because a lot of the mutant X-villains are honestly just people fighting back against a genuinely awful and evil world. I've rooted more for Mystique and Magneto over the years than I ever did for Xavier.

And even giving people like Emplate a second chance is, while not smart, at least understandable since their villainy was rooted in the fact their powers made them have to harm others to survive. Since they can fix that now an arguement could be made that they deserve a second chance where they aren't biologically forced to hurt or kill others just to live and so can live an ordinary life.

Allowing villains like Sinister, Sebastian Shaw or Apocalypse whose villainy goes beyond anything many of the others on Krakoa have ever done onto the island though is clearly a terrible idea but I think it's meant to be a terrible idea because the narrative is not trying to pretend that Xavier isn't an idiot.

And that is true but the compressed timeline actually makes it worse and give mutantkind even more reason to utterly hate humanity

What that means is that multiple attempted genocides by the Sentinels, the Purifiers, the repeated attempts to "Cure" mutantkind, Operation: Zero Tolerance, Senator Kelly and Graydon Creed and the whole No More Mutants thing all happened in a period of at most maybe two decades?

I think when the number of attempted genocides against you entire people and culture by deranged bigots who hate you just for existing have entered double digits in less than twenty years you are entirely entitled to utterly despise the people responsible for this and want to keep them away from you by any means

[jlbarnett]

they have the ability to leave Earth then.

and the cure thing, many mutants powers are extremely dangerous to themselves. There's been mutant powers that have killed them. Depowering for some is a good thing

[scorntx]

"Yes, Franklin, you are biologically and legally not a Mutant, and I can never take this statement back!"

(Next up on the reveal list: Johnny's deepest secret... he's not a real blonde. And never has been!)

[mindsweeper]

“Franklin, you wanted to be different and special so you used your infinite reality warping power to remake yourself as different. Because having those powers is so boring and ordinary while being a Mutant is what makes you cool.”

[super_fly]

Shit, better not tell anyone Gwenpool did pretty much the exact same thing to make herself a mutant

[malitia]

If this doesn't lead to the BEST STORY EVER™️ then this shouldn't have been done.

And I so don't care about Franklin being a mutant or not, I thought it was retconned ages ago (and would have preferred that way). But it wasn't, there was even a mini built on that.

[arilou_skiff]

It really just highlights the insanity of these arbitrary distinctions between power types.

[gnarll]

This is utter, utter bullshit. It reminds me of the worst excesses of sniping and territory protection during Shooters tenure.

FF is off my pull list.

Has Slott ever done anything really good? All I remember from him is She-Hulk which did not work for me. I am starting to think his work is something to avoid for me.

[obsidianwolf]

Slott has done one or two good mini's imo but over all he's pretty generic as a writer. He's fine when he's doing run of the mill stuff and some of his early Spiderman stuff was alright or at least had a neat hook and he was competent if not great at it.

Anything he's given a lot of lee way with to try to make his mark on though tends to turn out as absolute shit that goes on for far to long.

[coldfury]

He writes certain characters really well. I loved his work on the Thing series, and I hear his She-Hulk was really good.

[obsidianwolf]

IMO even the characters he is competent at writing tend to suffer if his work goes on too long. I honestly think Slott would work best as a limited series writer. Give him a decent story hook and a small number of issues and he could probably produce the occasional gem instead of letting him sit on a title for ages churning out worse and worse quality.

[deh_tommy]

Spider-Man, She-Hulk and Silver Surfer spring to mind.

[mastermahan]

Dan Slott has his talents. He's just very, very bad at retcons, and this might be his second worst.

First, of course, is "She-Hulk didn't sleep with Juggernaut, an alternate universe tourist did."

[silverzeo]

This is reminding me of Dr. Strange and Wanda in House of M where he says "Chaos Magic" never existed and retcon her character... only to backtrack on that and retcon that to be about some kinda of ploy to weaken a evil wizard somehow by saying that...

[zachbeacon]

"You can't join us. You're not a real mutant. You're just the literal god who recreated us after we all died in Secret Wars"

Also, and I know his reputation as a jerk is legendary, you'll think the Professor would be better at talking to teens undergoing power-related trauma by now. That's his one job.

I'm starting to see why people in the MU hate mutants more than other superhumans.

[scorntx]

The same Professor X who's practically made it his life's work to screw with the minds of teenagers?

Not really.
It's kind of amazing Franklin walked away from the conversation without even a cursory mind-wipe.

[zachbeacon]

I mean, I did nearly type "no wait, that came out wrong. Let me wipe your mind so we can start over".

At this point it wouldn't shock me if most conversations with Chuck involve at least one psychic do-over. Still, he's been doing this for six decades so you'd think he'd at least improve a little. Instead he said the worst possible thing.

Did Magneto and Mystique really have to actively recruit for the Brotherhood or did guys like Toad and the Blob just come to them while grumbling about "that bald a-hole"?

[deh_tommy]

I’m not surprised, this is exactly the kind of genetic-purity/eugenics/human bad mutant good bullcrap they called out in the FF/X-Men miniseries.

[cygnia]

I was gonna say, what was even the point of that FF/X-Men miniseries if they were gonna just pull this in the end?!

[zachbeacon]

Aside from providing an excuse for an X-Men/Doom confrontation and answering questions about how the crazy-powerful "mutant" who rarely gets involved in this stuff would react?

Selling people overpriced comics.(Still not as bad as Countdown to Final Crisis having nothing to do with Final Crisis or all those Prelude to a Wedding That Doesn't Happen one-shots)

Considering how important Franklin being a mutant (especially a "passing" one who is well-off and doesn't have major ties to the mutant community*) was to his identity, I'm kinda glad they touched on it while they could.

*Though he's a whole lot more invested in the plight of the Morlocks than Storm ever was.

Honestly - since it can't be a rights thing like it was with Quicksilver and others - I think it's more likely that this happened because the HoXPoX era makes hard to write mutants outside Orgy Island. Franklin lost his powers? That's an easy fix if he's suicidal enough. F4 getting beat up? Reinforcements are a portal away.

If you're an ally (especially a mutant ally) the current X-Men are a bigger plot device than SHIELD ever was.

[gnarll]

I just had to come back to repeat what a level of bullshit this is.

Franklin has been am mutant since 1968! He was in Days of Future Past. He detected as mutant long before he was old enough to know what "special " was. Also, if Franklin creation run out when he no longer has powers, all those universes he recreated are gone now.

[longboxingwhileblack]

1) I don't mind this. Taking Franklin off the board given the screwy rules in play for X Of Swords allows us to feel that something is at stake.

2) As a Black person, the need for Black spaces in a world seemingly built to destroy us is important. Mutants in Marvel are kind of analogs for Black folk in America. Allowing a marginalized person to determine who is allowed access that space feels like an ordeal because it's not the accepted normal order of things.

3) Charles is a piece of shit for making a huge effort to get the kid on Krakoa, Franklin deserves a better explanation. Unless this is a ploy by Chuck to trick Franklin into overcoming some sort of mental block.

[tcampbell1000]

CX: "You used your cosmic powers to alter your body until it APPEARED that you possessed the X-gene."

FR: "Wouldn't my cosmic powers find it a lot easier to just GIVE me the X-gene?"

CX: "Apparently not."

FR: "Also, I developed my powers as a toddler, which caused my parents no end of heartache and anxiety, and they spent a lot of time hooking me up with inhibitors and trying to get me to hide them. You're really saying I'd create all that strife in their lives and in MY life, just because I 'wanted to be different?'"

CX: "Son, it's best you learn this now: toddlers and young kids are assholes. You'll understand one day when you have children. Or so I'm told anyway: I wasn't really there for most of David's--"

FR: "I've created ENTIRE UNIVERSES."

CX: "And then you wandered off as soon as you got bored with them, which kind of proves the point."

FR: "And-and-and we're still skating around the REALLY BIG CONTRADICTION here, which is, if I DON'T HAVE MUTANT POWERS, HOW DID I REWRITE MY GENETIC STRUCTURE TO LOOK LIKE I HAVE MUTANT POWERS? Am I a secret Inhuman? Because I think my sometime BABYSITTER CRYSTAL might've NOTICED that! Are we blaming accidental radiation exposure or intentional tampering by my Dad? My Dad who still winces with self-blame every time he sees Uncle Ben try to hide his body in that hat and coat?"

CX: "Your family interacts with so much weirdness on a regular basis that it's a wonder you haven't all been turned into subatomic galaxies who sing their feelings in Latin by now. I'm sure SOME explanation of your powers is forthcoming. Maybe you, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Quake, and Squirrel Girl can form a support group while you wait for your next Sony movie to clear it up. We have our own franchise, so we can't afford to--"

FR: "Sony-- we're not SONY. We were 20th Century Fox and we're Disney now. Like you."

CX: "..."

FR: "Did you not know this? Because this is sort of the opposite of when Pietro and Wanda and even Doreen got their X-cards revoked. THEY belonged to DIFFERENT movie franchises, so it made sense to downplay THEIR crossover synergy, but--"

CX: "Franklin, I'm sorry, I have to make a phone call."

FR: "An actual phone call? Not another telepathy-call?"

CX: "SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO SCREAM AT YOUR AGENT WITH YOUR OWN THROAT."

[juniper6]

Oh, ffs.